


A Kept Man Isn't A Weak Man

by Elphen



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Age Difference, Alpha John, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Consensual, Dominant John, Implied Mpreg, Knotting, M/M, Masturbation, Mating Bond, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Omega Sherlock, Omega Verse, Possessive John, Scents & Smells, Sex Toys, Smut, Sugar Daddy, Sugar Daddy John, commission
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-18
Updated: 2016-08-18
Packaged: 2018-08-09 15:28:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7807186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elphen/pseuds/Elphen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock is just out of university, but due to drug habits acquired at said college, Mycroft has cut him off, hoping to put a stop to it that way. Instead, Omega Sherlock struggles doubly, both with his cravings and with finding a job that will not bore him to death and support him financially.<br/>Then, when he is on the verge of being completely destitute, he finds several hundred pounds ticking into his account for no apparent reason. He thinks it's Mycroft, but instead he receives an email from someone who promises to send him more money every fortnight and put him up in a flat rent free, on two conditions; he will stop taking drugs and he will occasionally be asked to be a companion for someone. He does not want to be bought like some toy, but what choice does he have?<br/>The first time the door bell rings, he is sure the man will demand sex. But instead he finds a very sharply dressed man with money and physical power in his mid-30s who wants to talk with him and take him out to dinner.<br/>Things quickly escalates on the emotional and physical side for Sherlock, but can you really have a relationship with an Alpha like that?</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Kept Man Isn't A Weak Man

**Author's Note:**

> Another commission for my sweet girl, she's such a darling. This time she wanted Sugar Daddy John and I have tried to live up to that, but I have never written any kind of sugar daddy story, so this was interesting.
> 
> If the age difference bothers you, that is quite alright, then this story is probably not for you :)
> 
> No Betas or Britpickers, everything is my fault

A chiming noise, accompanied by a buzz, indicating another email ticking in sounded through the miserable little room that was all he could afford on his by then very meagre savings.

Indifferent and eager at the same time, he picked up his phone from where he’d thrown it on the bed and opened it to see just what it was.

As he had suspected, it was another rejection email. The tone was almost excessively polite, as was to be expected, but there was no doubt about it.

_‘Dear Mr. Holmes._

_Thank you very much for your application for the job as senior chemist at our facility._

_Unfortunately, we are not able to offer you a job interview at the present time. Your qualifications are more than adequate, but your profile is sadly not compatible with what we are searching for at the moment._

_We wish you all the best in your future endeavours._

_Kind regards’_

Only the knowledge that he would not be able to afford a new phone, which was his only way of accessing the internet, kept him from throwing it against the wall in frustrated anger. As it was, it hit the mattress hard enough to bounce.

They might have called it ‘incompatible profile’, but every fool knew what was actually meant; they had a policy of not employing Omegas, but did not dare to voice out loud in case they were accused of sexism.

It wasn’t that he particularly _wanted_ to work for such a company. Truth be told, he would rather not work any of the dreary, mind numbingly mundane jobs that he had applied for in the last six months, but he was getting rather desperate.

He scratched at the inside of his arm, over the small scattering of tiny, white marks located there while he thought. He felt the need that was rarely very far away clawing at his insides again, wanting the world to just go away, but he managed to push it down, just barely.

Of course he could try and get a job that wasn’t specifically connected to chemistry, and that would keep him with a roof over his head, at least for the moment. It would not pay off his loan, nor would it go anywhere in trying to keep his…habit going.

Even so, there seemed to be nothing for it. With a sigh, he picked up his phone again to browse for any job that would be available to him and could pay the ridiculous money the landlord was demanding for this crummy bedsit, purely because he knew that single Omegas were limited for other options.

 

* * *

 

A month later saw Sherlock getting home from the work he had managed to get as a bartender in a club. It was hardly a reputable place, but all that meant was that the owners weren’t overly fussy about hiring an Omega for the job, even though there were quite a few unpleasant elements.

It was banal and boring and he had wanted to quit more times than he could count, but the promised pay had been a motivator each time and he had to admit, he was hardly bad at mixing the cocktails asked for by barely legal Omegas and Betas. The Alphas usually ordered single liquor drinks, such as whiskey, or, if they were feeling poor, beer.

Now he trudged his way back up into the bedsit where the wallpaper had a queasy pattern not at all helped by the stains littering it and the smell of damp was beginning to permeate the entire building.

The evening had quite frankly been horrific, with obnoxious conversation, idiotic music and at least five Alphas who thought that they ought to be nice to the strange Omega behind the bar and ‘show him a bit of a good time’. The only thing keeping him going and mostly passive apart from deducing one or two of the really persistent ones to shreds had been the fact that there would be money on his account when he got back. The manager had promised.

 

* * *

 

‘Current balance: £19,43’

Sherlock stared at the screen, eyes narrowed in disbelief.

Nothing. No money at all. Not so much as a brass farthing – which was a stupid expression to still use, the back of his mind supplied, as the coin hadn’t been valid currency for years.

That lying little toad.

Before he had a chance to contact the manager and ask just what the hell he thought he was doing, when Sherlock knew he cooked the books quite extensively, an email came in.

First he thought it was from the manager. Then the thought crossed his mind that it might have been from Mycroft, subtly gloating in that way of his since he’d know that there was almost no money left in his brother’s account, and he almost didn’t open it.

When he did, however, it was from neither of them nor was it from any email address that he recognized.

It read:

‘ _Dear Mr. Holmes_

_It has come to my attention that you are in need of money, quite badly so. I am in a position to provide you not only with money, but with accommodations that are far better than the one you are at currently, in a much better area of town, rent free._

_There are only two stipulations that you are required to follow in order to get this. One is that you check yourself into a rehabilitation centre or otherwise find a method to get yourself clean. I do not endorse recreational drugs for any reason._

_The second is as follows; you will be asked on occasion to be a companion to someone, either for a drink, a dinner or possibly a small trip. You will be that companion without any sort of quibble on your part._

_If these stipulations are not met, you will have one month to find alternative accommodations for yourself._

_However, if they are, you will find £500 a fortnight coming into your bank account, the first of which should have already gone through to you. The key to the flat will arrive after you have agreed to the terms of the agreement._

_Yours_

_JW’_

For a good few minutes, the Omega just sat there on his bed, completely nonplussed as to what had just occurred. Normally he would have scoffed at himself for such behaviour, but it just didn’t compute.

 It wasn’t that he hadn’t heard about such things happening to others. In fact, it had been the source of whispers among the student body of the university, both wishfully and warningly, but as far as he was aware, there was no one who had actually been a ‘recipient’, or at least they were not admitting to it.

After all, having a sugar daddy wasn’t something that would be easy to admit to.

But who exactly had taken the trouble to seek out Sherlock, of all people? More importantly, who had a knowledge not only of his email address, but his bank details, his financial situation and, most importantly, his heroin addiction?

The first idea, after he had drawn a blank on the address the email had been sent from, was that it was Mycroft who had decided to mock him for his failure and wanted to get a rise out of him. He dismissed the idea pretty quickly, however, as it was far too crass a way for his brother to do it.

The only reason what was presumably an Alpha would make an offer like that, with the stipulation that someone would ‘take him out’, was in order to get a leg over. Mycroft might be an Alpha himself, but he also had as little to do with gender dynamics, primary or secondary, as he possibly could within the boundaries of his job.

Who else could it be and why would they choose him specifically? Of course it did give them some leverage to get him to agree to the terms that they knew he was in serious financial trouble, and had a drug addiction to boot, but other than that, there was no real reason to pick him and not a hundred other young, unbonded Omegas struggling to find a handhold for themselves in an Alpha dominated society.

He checked his bank account again and sure enough, the balance read ‘£519,43’. He ran a hand through his hair, thinking.

Of course he could choose not to take it. It would mean that he would have to get clean, after all, and when his mind kept running a mile a minute with information and details and every single other observation possible, he _needed_ the cocaine to shut it up and get some blissful peace and quiet.

Would his ‘benefactor’ understand that? How could he possibly? Mycroft certainly hadn’t and he was, loathe though Sherlock was to admit it, at least as intelligent as the Omega.

He glanced around the room, which did not take long at all, before he dug into his pocket and pulled out a somewhat bedraggled cigarette.

On the other hand, the reality of his circumstances being what it was, he was hardly in a position to play high and mighty, was he? He had not exactly proven that he could stand on his own two legs so far, had he?

Besides, it was not as though he would have to agree to it for long, and if he played his cards right, he could get out of it and paying for his own way long before he was expected to actually make good on the deal, as it were.

Mind made up, cigarette lit and dangling between push lips, he sat down to write a reply.

The key to the flat together with the address of it arrived by courier that afternoon.

It did not take him long to gather his belongings, the microscope being very carefully packed, order a cab that would take both him and his boxes and move out. The notice to the landlord he wrote as a text on the way.

 

* * *

 

It turned out the flat was located in Covent Garden, in a building that had been allowed to keep its period features on the outside, but on the inside it had been renovated to within an inch of its life. It was now a one-bedroom flat with high ceilings, a surprising amount of light flooding most of it and everything done in either white or magnolia.

Truth be told, he would rather have been put up somewhere in Marylebone, where there was at least something resembling life and colour, but beggars really couldn’t be choosers, and with an average cost of flats of this size in the area being around the £1,000,000 mark, he was in no position to complain. Especially since it came fully furnished as well.

It did not take him long to move in with the belongings he did have. Afterwards, he sat on the rather pristine, beige sofa in the living room, lips around a cigarette, contemplating what to do next.

He did not bother with calling up the manager of the club to tell him he wouldn’t be coming anymore. There did not seem much point, given the bastard’s behaviour. Nor did it seem that urgent to continue the job search, even though he would very much like to be out of the place before he was called on to…make good on the deal, as it were.

He had not indulged in the life that was almost the standard for Omegas at university, with booze and lots of sex, since he had no interest in either, and he saw no reason to change that now.

So instead he decided to snoop around his own new flat, looking for any clue as to who his mysterious benefactor was.

If he could find that out by way of deduction, he could get an insight into what the man, or woman, was like and why exactly they had chosen to do this. If they just wanted a young Omega body for a romp, there were plenty of places that catered to every type of need under the sun, without them having to shell out such large amounts of money for it. Then there would be something for him to exploit and get him on a more equal footing where he would not have to ‘accompany’ anyone he did not want to.

 

* * *

 

Two weeks later and he was not significantly closer to working out the identity of his benefactor.

It was frustrating beyond belief. How could one person be that difficult to trace? Everyone left some sort of trail that could be followed if one worked at it even the tiniest bit.

But if you were to follow the thread, you did need to find it first and there was nothing for him to grab onto. The email was about as generic as possible, the purchase of the flat was done by proxy and then it was put in Sherlock’s own name, removing traces in the process.

What was left of a cigarette was stubbed out into the ash tray hard, only to be immediately followed by another being lit up and taken a long pull from.

That was one thing to be said in favour of this otherwise aggravating endeavour; he had most certainly not been in need of his cocaine for the duration of his look into this thing.

He drew the laptop he had bought with a portion of his first ‘payment’ over to him, opened it up and began to type. If one door closes, then you just had to sneak in through a window somewhere, after all.

 

* * *

 

The ‘summons’ to be a companion came rather sooner than he expected. Only a month into his tenure at the flat he received an email that he should expect a visitor by six pm and that he was to be dressed fittingly. It was once again signed ‘JW’, with no other clue as to identity.

Out of pure spite, he seriously thought about answering the door in his pyjamas and dressing gown. But as he had not yet managed to find either other accommodations or a suitable job, it would be more than unwise to agitate the man, at the moment, at least.

So about an hour before the doorbell would presumably ring, he went into the shower for a long soak, then he dug into his closet for an outfit that would do, coming up with a pair of black slacks, some somewhat worn brogues and a reasonable shirt, which happened to be a dark teal one. It was not his best one, but that one had not been ironed.

He was still fiddling with buttoning the cuffs of the shirt when the doorbell rang. Not by any means looking forward to it, but at the same time beyond curious as to who exactly would be turning up, the Omega walked towards the door.

There was no spyhole, sadly, so he had to open the door in order to see the person outside.

If anyone had asked him how the person coming to see him, and he knew that it would be his benefactor for at least this first time, would look, he would have put them down as being at least in their late forties, given the amount of money they had to splash on basically a stranger. They would have had some stature and an air of confidence, having been a powerful Alpha in their day, but, while still influential, was starting to feel their age and would be seeking to reclaim their youth and vigour by having an Omega over twenty years their junior on their arm.

In other words, he would be well past his prime.

Therefore, it came as rather a surprise that his deductions were off, quite significantly so.

The man standing on the doorstep was older than Sherlock, that much he had gotten right, but he was closer to his late- or even mid-thirties, not late forties. He had also most certainly been a powerful Alpha in his youth, but the difference was that he had not lost any of that power in the intervening years.

Instead it seemed to have transmuted into a less aggressive, but far more easy-going and confident version, which had settled around him like a cape. It certainly made the fact that he was just around average height for a British male, and a bit below average for an Alpha, far less noticeable and decidedly less important.

Not that he hadn’t dressed to enhance it, either. He had not chosen to go with a shirt, but with the weather being unexpectedly good for an evening in London in early June, it was not too surprising, and the black t-shirt he had chosen instead was a snug fit that hugged just the right places and left others tantalizingly to the imagination. So was the case with the white chinos; loose-fitting enough that they wouldn’t restrict movement, but straining ever so slightly around the thighs. The brown leather shoes were well worn, but also well cared for, and he wore a large wrist watch and a leather string around his neck.

The wrist watch was somewhat incongruous; it was definitely a good make, Cartier, and had been worn for some time, if the bit of untanned skin visible where the watch had moved was any indicator, but it was also old and did not fit with the rest of his outfit at all. It would not have been something he’d been presented with in the course of his work, as he wouldn’t bother wearing it outside of his work environment, which Sherlock annoyingly still wasn’t able to work out. It would have to have been a present from someone that he still cared about, possibly having been handed down to him by his father.

The leather string contained a small array of things, chief among them being dog tags. One dog tag, to be precise, the little round disc all the more noticeable for missing its partner.

For all of that, what really stole the show wasn’t the clothes or the air around him. It wasn’t even the subtle, but unexpectedly delicious and very masculine scent of Alpha coming off his skin.

It was the face. Open and welcoming at first glance, the lines on it ought to have given him an older and softer look, but none of those things were true. Instead the lines around his mouth gave him a determined, no nonsense set to it, while the slight bags under his eyes brought more attention to said eyes and the lines on the forehead indicated a face that was often drawn, in a frown or anger or even just concentration.

They spoke of a man who had seen the world and was not afraid to interact with it in a way that benefitted him the most. Combined with the depth of the somewhat big, but at the same time deep eyes that held more than a hint of intelligence, it was potent.

Thankfully the observations were done quickly enough that he wouldn’t be seen to be staring. He was starting off with enough of a disadvantage as it was. There was no need to give any additional ammunition to the man.

“Yes?” he said by way of greeting, voice as neutral as he could get it.

Not that the disinterested tone seemed to bother the Alpha. In fact, his eyes brightened as his face lit up with a smile that seemed to transform his face and make the Omega feel forced to swallow suddenly.

“Ah, good. I wasn’t too sure you would open the door, to be honest.” He held out a hand. “Hello. I’m John.”

 _You are paying the way of a complete stranger with the more than likely expectation of sex in return and you actually call yourself_ ‘ ** _John_** _’?_ the Omega thought in the back of his mind. _I honestly do not know whether it would be more ironic as a cover name or your real name_.

Nevertheless, he took the proffered hand and shook it briefly. “Hello. I won’t bother with my name, as you know it already.”

The man did not rise to the bait of the comment. Mmh. “I see you’re all dressed up. Shall we go, then?”

That threw Sherlock slightly. “Go?” he echoed. He had thought that they would stay in so that the man could let him feel just how much money he was actually spending and where this arrangement was going to go in more detail. More graphic, hands on detail, as it were.

“Well, the table’s booked for half six, which should give us plenty of time to walk there, if you’re ready.” He paused, brow knitting minutely as he considered something. “Unless, of course, you’re not feeling well?”

Sherlock frowned in return at that. “Why would I not feel well?” _Not like I haven’t steeled myself for what’s ahead, after all._

“No reason,” John replied after hesitating for just a moment, flashing another smile. He shifted on his feet, then raised his eyebrows.

“I haven’t got my wallet,” Sherlock said, taking a step backwards as if to go and get it.

He half-expected the Alpha, John, to say something to the effect of ‘no need to bother with that’, but he was to be surprised.

“Best run in and fetch it, then. Always important to at least have something to identify yourself with on you.”

“Yes, well, we can’t all be wearing army issued dog tags with our names on them, now can we?”

John didn’t get angry at him for pointing out a thing that was obviously something personal. Off all things, he instead giggled. It was only for a very brief moment, but it couldn’t be called an outright laugh or even a chuckle. It was strangely endearing.

Sherlock found himself smiling in return. It would seem that the evening would at the very least not end up too boring.

 

* * *

 

 

There was another surprise in store for him as they walked to the restaurant; John wasn’t the type to chatter constantly when there was nothing to say. He had not treated Sherlock as a delicate Omega that he needed to wait on or take extra special care of, but neither had he divorced himself from the other’s company at all.

Eventually they stopped in front of a French restaurant, Clos Maggiore, which had a very posh, though inviting exterior. Sherlock withheld his judgement. It wasn’t in the immediate exterior that you would be able to spot the actual quality of an establishment, after all, nor was it in the number of people standing outside waiting for a table.

As soon as they were spotted by a waiter, the man smiled a genuine smile and came over to guide them to their table. Despite it obviously being fully booked and the cuisine was French, the room they were led into had a very cosy, intimate feel to it, though the branches laden with flowers seemed a bit too much.

They were seated, the waiter pulling out chairs for both of them before he asked what wine they would like. John smiled and asked for whatever would go well with the starters and mains they chose. The waiter nodded in turn, took the order for the starters and left.

After he had left, they remained silent for a few moments longer until the Omega noticed he was being observed by the Alpha. As he was normally the one doing the observing, it startled him ever so slightly.

“Well?”

“Well what?”

“Your eyes have been darting around ever since we arrived here, but you haven’t said anything, so come on, out with whatever you’ve picked up.”

“They don’t ‘dart around’,” Sherlock scoffed, nose unintentionally wrinkling.

“No, of course not,” John replied, completely deadpan as he raised his eyebrows again and pursed his lips. “Well?”

Sherlock contemplated not saying a word. What did the man actually care about his deductions? Nobody else had, when he had bothered to utter them, the instances of which had dwindled rapidly as he had gotten older, until by the time of university, the only time he’d employed them had been to keep people away.

On the other hand, he had not yet met someone who had noticed his observational skills without prior knowledge of them. Perhaps he could take a chance and see how this one would react. Not to the increasing amount of deductions he had about the man himself, those he would keep to himself for possible use at another time, but the ones he had about the place.

“The immediate impression is that of a high class, exclusive restaurant that are banking more on the location, the environment and the French flair than the quality of their food to justify the prices they charge.” He paused, a ghost of a smile playing across his lips. “You need only look at the thread count of the tablecloth, paintwork on the outer door and the conservatory and the care taken on the waiter’s shoes to know that the money is spent on things of quality that will actually benefit the restaurant, not just the owners, and of course the food and wine itself.”

He drew in a breath before continuing. “Not only that, but though they have actually bothered to draft in a staff comprising almost exclusively of French born people, including the chef, all of them can and do speak fluent English with no trace of…” He trailed off. “What?” he asked at the expression on the other’s face, his tone instinctually defensive. He tried not to let himself be affected, but

“Nothing,” John said with a small shake of his head, but he was trying and failing to suppress a grin. “That’s just…you got that…the _tablecloth_ …that’s amazing!”

“Really?” Sherlock asked, blinking in confusion and suspicion. It was far from his most impressive work, but that wasn’t to say that he didn’t appreciate being complimented on them for once.

“Of course it was.” He was about to say more, but at that moment the waiter returned with their starters, which did look very appetizing indeed. “Thank you for that.”

“No problem, sir,” the waiter replied with a smile that was just slightly conspiratorial. “I shall bring you the wine directly.” And he did, coming back to the table with a bottle that he poured from, filling the glasses to just below what would be termed a full glass.

“Would you like anything else?”

Even though it was clear who had booked the table and would more than likely be paying for the meal, the waiter paid the curtesy of addressing both of them as he spoke.

“Not for the moment, no, thank you,” John said.

He looked at Sherlock for a moment before he dug into his own starter, taking a bite and letting out a small groan of enjoyment after he’d swallowed. When he saw Sherlock’s expression, he gave a short cough. “Sorry. Bit of a fan of this Dorset crab and I don’t get to indulge as often as I like. But then, that’s always the case, isn’t it?”

“Please. Don’t hold back on my account.” It certainly had nothing to do with the reaction that small groan caused in the brunette. Nothing at all.

“Always as acerbic as that, are you?” Despite the question, the Alpha didn’t seem particular irritated or put off by it. It sounded more like a challenge.

“Oh, not at all,” the Omega shot back, eyebrow cocked. “I’m relatively mild for tonight. Must be the atmosphere in here. Apropos atmosphere – why now?”

“What, you can’t deduce it?” Oh, definitely a challenge there.

“There is nothing to deduce _from._ It would be nothing but pure speculation and I don’t deal in guesswork. I can tell you why it wasn’t when I first moved in – you weren’t in the country at the time. It was a business trip that left you room to wander about, as can be easily seen by where your body has tanned. But you have been back in London long enough for the tan to have faded slightly, so that can’t have been the primary reason, if even a reason at all.”

He took a bite off his own plate before continuing. “It cannot have had anything to do with my Heat, as that passed before you went away and I will not have the next one for another two months.”

A frown was suddenly marring the shorter man’s forehead, but to some surprise for the Omega, it was not one of frustration nor of disappointment. Instead it was one of what seemed like genuine puzzlement and worry.

“A gap of four months between Heats? That is hardly a good sign, now is it? Do eat your food, there’s more on the way.”

Sherlock, though frowning in turn, said nothing, but he did dig into his starter, nevertheless. There was something in those blue eyes that told him that not doing so would be a very bad idea indeed.

Normally he wasn’t one to be browbeaten into doing things simply because someone else thought that it was a good idea. Mycroft could attest to that and so could most of the teachers and tutors that had had the misfortune to teach him subjects that he did not care for.

It was not the fact that the man was an Alpha, either, or Sherlock would have been under the sway right from the off. John was attractive, to be sure, which his nether regions were quite happy to make note of, and if he had known that his ‘benefactor’ would be as apparently easy, intelligent company as he was, well…it still wouldn’t have made him a compliant, meek Omega that could be easily told what to do.

Of course there was the threat of being kicked out of the flat looming over his head, but when he took into consideration the fact that he had yet to make good on his end of the deal, as it were, that did not hold much real weight.

What made the difference was how John had treated him so far. Not as an object he had bought, not as an Omega that he had to pamper. He had been treated as something between an acquaintance you’d like to become a friend and a date. His deductions were listened to with actual interest, then marvelled at them when they came and on top, there was concern. It was ostensibly a legitimate concern for his wellbeing, too, what with his body being too thin for his Heat to come more often. The only ulterior motive for that concern was already covered by the things he had already received.

In short, he had been treated as an equal. For that he could eat both a starter and a main course. Perhaps he might even say yes to dessert, depending on the evening. If there was anything that could be licked off a spoon, that was certainly an option; for all that John was getting an unexpected reaction out of Sherlock, it would only be fair to see if the brunette could possibly manage a reaction in return.

“To answer your question of ‘why now’,” John began, after Sherlock had eaten quite a few bites down his throat under scrutiny, “it is simply because I have been wanting to see you and the opportunity came up now.” He winked, showing that he was perfectly aware of how little of an answer that actually was.

Sherlock smiled inwardly. So the man was baiting him to work out what that immensely vague ‘answer’ entailed and what exactly he did. Challenge accepted.

 

* * *

 

By the time they had finished their main course, Sherlock was quite full, not being used to eating that much in one go, and he had several deductions about his dinner companion to proceed with when he came home.

Of course he could just outright ask John about the details, but that would not only be boring, but more than likely be met with no real answer.

That did not, however, mean that they had nothing to talk about. It was easy-going without being banal, for the most part, and the pauses that occurred were not awkward. Sherlock was unaccustomedly talkative as he recounted a few of the more interesting incidents that had happened during his time at university, getting a laugh or two, and John countered with a few stories of his own, though he kept them mostly about the social interactions that had been a major part of his studies; the ones that Sherlock had stayed clear of.

“Oh, god, no, don’t make me laugh anymore,” John wheezed, putting a hand on his stomach, “my stomach hurts.”

“You should learn not to stuff it so much, then,” Sherlock replied, trying to adjust his own belt ever so slightly to gain a bit of breathing space without it being noticed.

“That’s a bit rich from an anorexic whose stomach is bulging from a plate full of lamb and polenta,” the Alpha shot back, good-naturedly.

“Anorexic? Careful, that could be construed by one of our lovely fellow diners as discrimination towards a poor Omega.”

“Could it now? How do you propose I show them that I am only trying to take care of this Omega for the evening, then? Think that a bit of dessert would do the trick?”

“It’s worth a shot, certainly.”

_And I get to see whether you can reign in your Alpha instincts towards an Omega in during a course that uses a spoon quite extensively. After all, if I’m to ‘deliver the goods’ later on, it would be helpful to know such things._

 

* * *

 

It was around half eleven by the time Sherlock was back in his flat, having parted ways with John just a few streets away. For some reason, he was grateful that he hadn’t been accompanied all the way to the front door. That would have made the evening feel even more like a date than it already did, which he wasn’t entirely sure he could handle, yet at the same time, it would also have reminded him of just who John was and why this was happening in the first place.

The problem was that he had had fun. He had genuinely liked the man, even if he wasn’t quite as intelligent as Sherlock himself. In a way, that ought to be reassuring, seeing as he would be expected to do things like that, and more, from now on, but on the other hand, it would have been so much easier to get one over on him if he had been the overweight, pathetic Alpha past his prime that the brunette had thought he would be.

Puzzling, too, was the fact that they actually _had_ parted ways. Cynical though it may be, he had still expected that there would be _some_ sort of recouping the investment by the end of the evening. Instead he had gotten another brilliant smile of a type that had already begun to affect the Omega’s knees when it came, wished a very good evening and then been sent on his way.

As he let himself fall onto the sofa, not even bothering to take his shoes off beforehand, his phone buzzed with an incoming message.

When he opened it, it was, as suspected, from John.

_Thank you for a lovely evening. An unexpected delight. Till next time. John_

Why he had opened it instead of ignoring it as was his wont, he could not say, nor could he tell anyone asking why he wrote back almost immediately.

_Unexpected is not a good sign in the circumstances. Hardly good business practice to pay for goods of unknown quality. SH_

He knew he was being a bit crass, but at the same time he had gotten somewhat more insight into the sort of man John was during the evening, even if there had been few actual clues to be had, and he was quite confident that he would not take offense. Anyway, what did he care if he did? Why would he care?

The reply came almost immediately.

_If you don’t take the risk, you don’t get the reward – and so far, I’ve gotten quite the reward, I believe._

Then another came, right on the heels of the first one.

_Well done on staying off the drugs, by the way. I hope that the withdrawal hasn’t been too bad._

Suddenly feeling annoyed, Sherlock shoved the phone back into his trouser pocket and turned onto his side on the sofa. It was true that he hadn’t touched the small stash of heroin that he had secreted somewhere in the flat in the months he had been living there, and that he had managed the withdrawal symptoms with a shred of his dignity intact, too.

That did not mean he appreciated being metaphorically patted on the head, like he was a good dog behaving like it should. That might be what he was, essentially, but that did not mean he had to like being treated as such. There was a reason that he had never conformed to what was expected of either his primary or his secondary gender.

Another text ticked in shortly afterwards, but, making an assumption of who it was from, he ignored it. John had gotten what he wanted for the time being, at least; there was no real need for them to communicate outside of the times that the Alpha requested the presence of the Omega. Given that the man led a busy, business-focused life that obviously left little time for any significant amount of leisure time, which the gusto with which he had dug into a good, but not exceptional meal attested to, it seemed fairly unlikely that it would happen anytime soon.

He felt his fingers itch, but he wasn’t quite sure whether it was for a fix that would quieten his mind or for his violin to get the emotions out of his system. Then he remembered that Mycroft had taken his violin from him in an attempt to get him to conform.

Feeling even more sour at the memory, he instead chose to get up and go into his bedroom. The light in there was much more conducive to thinking, and he needed to think. He needed to find out just who John was so that he would gain the upper hand against him.

How hard could it be? He was a genius and he now had several useful deductions about the man to draw from. It should be a doddle.

 

* * *

 

Morning found Sherlock sprawled on the bed, under the covers, curls falling around his head like a halo. He was sleeping, but dreams seemed to pervade his slumber.

He woke with a small gasp, sat up sharply and then grimaced. He was sitting in a damp patch, bordering on slick, that originated from between his legs; not only that, he was sporting quite the morning erection.

Something like dismay crossed his features. He could honestly not remember that last time that he had woken up with an erection, never mind the moistness coming from his backside, but there was no denying that it was there.

Nor did it appear to be in any hurry to dissipate. Quite the opposite and any attempt to get it to wilt was met with faint mental images of tanned hands, deep blue eyes, smiling lips and a compact body. It was not in any way helped by the accompaniment of ghost sensations lingering on his skin and he cursed the quality of his imagination.

Giving up on ignoring it, he dipped his hand under the waistband of his pants, gasping again when his fingers touched the heated skin. He had not been aware of just how sensitive the imaginations had made him. His dream had clearly been quite a bit more exciting than he had initially thought and he let himself fall back onto the mattress, torn between going fast and let his imagination run wild and going slowly and prolonging the pleasure.

In the end, his imagination made the decision for him; it provided him with an image of a body shiny with sweat, a broad, satisfied grin and, most importantly, deep blue eyes that were almost completely swallowed by their pupils.

The orgasm shot through him, leaving him a moaning, shaking mess.

As soon as the last shudder had run through him, he felt disgusted with himself. It was just one bleeding Alpha. There were millions out there, in every shape, size and temperament. None of the ones he had come across since he had presented had interested him or even affected him very much. Well, there had been his old lab partner during his time as an undergraduate, but that had been more of a case of his hormones running rampant in the run up to a Heat.

This time he was nowhere close to a Heat and he had only met John once instead of being exposed to him and his, admittedly wonderfully musky, scent for an extended period of time. So why the bleeding hell was he letting someone like that get to him? Liking his company was one thing, but getting aroused like that by the man who was more or less his sugar daddy was another thing entirely.

It left him in entirely too vulnerable a position, which did not sit well with him at all.

This was not good. He had to nip it in the bud. At least to the point where he could just enjoy John’s company as an acquaintance. It would be in his best interest.

 

* * *

 

The next time Sherlock saw John was less than a fortnight later, which came as something of a surprise to the Omega, who had not expected to see him again for at least another month. Then again, it was not as though the second meeting was deliberate at all.

John was not alone when Sherlock spotted him, on his way home from a trip to source materials for some experiments that he wanted it. He was walking among quite a few other people with whom he was talking rather animatedly. It was clear that he was among people of his own social status, but that he was more than able to hold his own.

He was also dressed quite differently than last time; in a well fitted three piece suit he looked not only dapper and in charge, but also much more professional and distant. He _fitted_ with the age, the power and the prestige that the brunette had known he possessed, fitted in a way that he just hadn’t in the clothes he had worn for their first meeting.

Not interested in being seen by John and his associates while he was carrying a few less than savoury items for his experiments, Sherlock tried to get past them unseen. It wasn’t that he was ashamed – he would have trouble remembering the last that he had been ashamed – but he could do without being questioned by ignorant clots who had no idea of what he was doing, but was ever so inclined to share their opinion regardless.

His luck seemed to have abandoned him, though; he was just about to pass the group entirely when his name was called. Not even when he attempted to ignore it and keep going was he successful. His name was called again and he had to stop or he would have walked into the shorter man, who was now standing in front of him, trapping the brunette between his broad, muscled body and a wall, hands on his hips and an expression caught between a smile and a deep frown.

“Hello, Sherlock.”

“John.”  He didn’t say anything else. What else could he say? ‘Hello there. You’re making me feel quite a few things that I am not entirely comfortable with feeling and certainly not ready to confront by seeing you again so soon and thus I’d much rather evade your person at the present moment’. It was true, but that did not mean that he was going to divulge it, now did it?

“Been busy, then, I take it?” There was an edge to the otherwise pleasant tone of voice.

Sherlock wasn’t about to be intimidated, however, regardless of what his instincts were telling him. “Takes one to know one,” he returned, raising an eyebrow and nodding minutely in the direction of the Alpha’s companions.

John stepped closer, but only so that he could grab hold of a narrow waist and lift him up bodily until he was pressed against the wall. His eyes were narrowed slightly and there was a hard set to his mouth. “Now, I am not going to argue with you this time, because I am actually in a bit of a hurry,” he said, voice low so as not to alert the others to what they were talking about, “but I want you to listen to me very closely.”

He waited until he had confirmation the Omega was listening before he continued. “I do not want you to just stop responding to me like that again. I don’t care if you’re in a strop or busy, that’s your headache to deal with, but I do not want the next time I hear of you to be when you’re in hospital, overdosed on something.”

Quite a few thoughts exploded in Sherlock’s mind at that. The first one was indignation at the suggestion that he would be careless enough to overdose in the first place; he knew perfectly well what he was doing. The second was how exactly the Alpha planned to be informed of Sherlock overdosing, since he did not have the access that Mycroft did. Yet another wondered at the lack of trust in him that John displayed with that. For some reason, the last one was the one that rankled most.

“You do not own me.” Even as he said it, he knew it for the lie that it was. He had been well and truly bought, hadn’t he? Hell, he had even been prepared to have to repay the man the first time they had met.

So he steeled himself for a mocking or knowing reaction from the Alpha, but he didn’t get it. One would have suspected that it had something to do with the rest of the group, but there was something in the blue eyes, an odd mix of hurt, resignation and anger that just did not make any sense to Sherlock. They had not known each other for any length of time, there was no reason for him to be affected. For either of them, really, but that was neither here nor there.

“Perhaps not,” John replied, voice carefully calm and even, too much so, “but that does not mean I can’t worry about you.” He lowered his voice again. “I do not want to see you dead somewhere.”

“I can – “Sherlock started to say, but stopped. It would be another lie and while he had no problem with lying when it suited his purposes, there was no reason to state something that would be caught out as a lie the moment he said it. “There is no need,” he said instead.

“Oh, shut up, you berk,” the shorter man snapped, but the anger in his eyes had lessened considerably, which in turned uncoiled something inside of Sherlock that he hadn’t been aware had been wound in the first place.

The Omega found himself offering a small, but genuine and minutely self-conscious smile.

“John, are you coming or what?” one of the women in the group asked, clearly getting fed up with waiting on him.

“Oh, bloody hell…” John muttered, annoyed, before he called out, “Yeah, I’m coming, just give me a blooming minute, alright?”

He turned his attention back to Sherlock and let the younger man down onto the ground again, having held him up against the wall the entire argument. “Look, I don’t want to be monitoring you or anything of the like, but I’d like to know that you’re okay. So when I text you, just every once in a while, could you be arsed to actually reply to them?”

He flashed a smile that, like the last time they had met, had quite the detrimental effect on the stability of Sherlock’s knees and had him nodding without conscious thought. Then John went back to the people still waiting on him, but interestingly to note, he did not run or otherwise hurry. Instead he strode, his gait confident.

The younger Holmes did not stand and watch them go like some other lovesick, pining idiot. Instead he hurried home, bags clutched tightly in his hands, cheeks burning bright at the sensation and smell of slick trickling down his thighs as he walked, the musky Alpha scent hanging in his nostrils.

It was only when he was ensconced in the flat once more that he became aware of a sensation he had not felt before in his life.

The scent gland on the left side of his neck was warm. When he bared the area, it was ever so slightly swollen, not to mention reddened and throbbing gently in time with his pulse.

He looked at himself in the mirror, the pale eyes reflecting the shock that he felt. To be affected to a level that manifested itself in the scent gland of all places was telling in and of itself, not to mention quite worrying. Especially in light of his desire to have far better control of himself when he met John in the future.

 _But perhaps_ , he thought as he resolutely dragged his shirt back up to cover the swollen gland, _the thing to do is to accept that I am going to be affected and just roll with it. It clearly is not going to disappear on its own. So perhaps the thing to do is spend as much time with him as I can, so that I can acclimatise that way and get a damn grip!_

Mind made up, he staunchly ignored any reaction coming from his body, or his heart for that matter, and walked back to where he had left the stuff he had gotten for his experiments. There was a few of the gall bladders that wouldn’t keep too long outside of a fridge and he wanted their decomposition to take place in the solutions he had prepared for them before he left.

As he sat hunched over his microscope, examining something else entirely, he felt his phone buzz in his trouser pocket. He did not fish it out before he had finished what he was studying, though.

_Hey. Good to see you today, didn’t expect that._

_Likewise. SH_

That he didn’t specify which part he was replying to, or if it was both, well…he had replied, hadn’t he?

_Sorry if I came over a bit strong. Stressful time and all._

_It’s fine. Stress does bring out instincts. SH_

_That it does, Alpha ones in particular, as I know to my cost._

Another text came in right on the heels of the first one.

_I hope you’ll be free for the evening in around two weeks._

How John expected him to say ‘no’, Sherlock had absolutely no idea. He told himself that was only the case because of their arrangement. He told himself that very firmly.

_Of course. SH_

_Good! See you then – and take care of yourself… Idiot._

_Takes one to know one, Mr. Watson. SH_

_True. When did you work out the last name?_

_That would be telling. Don’t you have work to get back to? SH_

_Oh, god, don’t remind me. This meeting is going to kill me._

_I hope not. SH_

Which was true enough _._ Problems with reactions and emotions notwithstanding, the Omega could admit that John was probably the Alpha that he had got on best with since he’d been a child, if not the person in general. They just seemed to fit together, somehow. The smile he could feel stretching his face as he texted attested to that.

_Thank you. I’ll see you, then._

 

* * *

 

“My, don’t we look dapper tonight.”

It had been more than two weeks since Sherlock had bumped into John. In fact, it had been almost a month, which the Alpha had apologized for. He had been snowed under with work, apparently.

“You specified to wear a _good_ suit for the evening, you have no right to complain.” Especially in light of the fact that it had been chosen and paid for by the Alpha; it had arrived by courier the previous day and, although he had not been in for a fitting, when he had put it on, it had fitted him fairly well. Very well indeed, if he had to be truthful. Not only that, the dark chocolate brown wool used for it was of a good quality and the stitching was exceedingly well done.

He adjusted the cuff of his shirt, feeling conscious of the fact that even more money had been splurged on him, a feeling which was somewhat alien to the younger Holmes. He never normally cared about things like that.

“I do believe that it was a three-piece suit that I ordered, though,” John commented, taking a step back to give Sherlock a once-over that sent a series of little shivers running through the lithe body and sent his body temperature up a notch or two. “Where’s the waistcoat?”

“Didn’t fit.”

It had. It had fitted like a glove and had rounded off the ensemble very nicely. But when he had put it on earlier in the day and had looked into the mirror, all he could see in there had been his brother, or rather, a younger version of himself that had wanted so desperately to imitate and gain the approval of said brother.

He had taken the waistcoat off as quickly as his fingers could possibly manage it and had chucked it onto the floor.

John raised a disbelieving eyebrow at the statement, but he didn’t otherwise pass comment on it.

“Right, then, shall we?”

Sherlock followed the older man outside to where a car was waiting for them. “You still haven’t told me where you’re taking me.”

“Don’t tell me you can’t deduce it.”

“Still don’t deal in guesswork.” He paused for a moment as they got into the vehicle, then continued once they were both seated. “But given your own attire, the fact that your hair is styled rather more than the last two times I’ve seen you and that you are positively reeking of scent enhancing cologne, it is not a bit of Sunday roast dinner or even the usual gathering of colleagues, quite apart from the money spent on this suit. Even though you are more than used to dealing with people, and people of quite a high standing, at that, you are not quite comfortable with how this evening in particular is going to pan out, which is why you have kept your watch on. It is even more incongruous than it was on our first meeting, but it is a source of comfort to you, something familiar and safe, therefore it serves as something of a buffer between you and the rest of the world. So, consequently, the event that we are going to is very significant to you, not as a person of business, but on a personal level.”

He paused again, then flashed a smile that was more show than substance. “Going to what was supposed to be your engagement party with someone on your arm so that you can better justify breaking it off?”

John looked at him, completely and genuinely nonplussed. “What? No! Where the hell did you get that from?”

“Why else would you choose to take an Omega 15 years your junior, who is a recovering drug addict with a rather acerbic tongue and a disagreeable personality, to…and why are you laughing?”

The shorter man shook his head, completely unable to respond due to his laughter.

When he could speak again without running the risk of bursting something, he did reply, though.

“I’m…God, Sherlock – I’m laughing because you’re bloody well dissecting yourself as if you’re merely pointing out the reasons not to buy a browning head of lettuce at the supermarket. With a completely straight face, too, I may add!” his speech was interspersed with small giggling noises, as though he still couldn’t quite believe it.

“Well, it’s true,” Sherlock muttered, somewhat perturbed at being laughed at for what, for all that he knew, was the only possible solution. Especially when the one laughing was the one he was developing an unintended crush on. One which wasn’t helped by the Alpha’s wonderful scent filling up the inside of the cabin.

A hand was suddenly sitting on top of his thigh, not squeezing, but pressing down in a concerned manner. Pale eyes rose to look into deep blues; eyes that were showing compassion and some concern.

“I wouldn’t describe you in those terms,” John said softly, nothing but earnestness in his voice, and there was a soothing undertone to the already pleasant Alpha scent that the Omega found very appealing. “I won’t tell you it isn’t true, because that’s not for me to say, but I don’t think of you like that, okay? I admit that what we’re going to is a bit intimidating for me, as it’s actually my _sister’s_ engagement party, not mine, but that’s not why I’ve brought you. There’s plenty – “he broke off and Sherlock tried not to hear the unspoken ‘ _there’s plenty of other people who’d have loved to go with me’_ , but he couldn’t really claim he succeeded at all well on that score. Something squeezed inside of his chest.

“I _wanted_ you to go with me, alright?” the blonde continued after a bit of awkward silence. “I really enjoyed our dinner together and I thought this might be a good opportunity to spend a bit more time together, seeing as I don’t have that much time off.”

“I thought you’d have more say in when and how you work as the managing director of a large medical company.”

A small narrowing of eyes told the brunette that John was well aware he’d changed the subject deliberately. “I’m not the managing director, actually, I’m just the poor bloke who came up with the original idea for the product and started the company. I still have some power, obviously, but I’m more in charge of making sure the contacts are taken care off, boring stuff, mostly, but it has to be done, doesn’t it?” He sighed.

Sherlock didn’t believe him for a moment; he did have both fully functional eyes as well as a very good nose, after all. He knew what John was, even without having gotten solid information about the man, and what influence and power he wielded. That said, it might not be a bad idea to play along for now and see what happened at the thing they were going to.

If nothing else, he would get to spend more time with John and he was beginning to treasure those moments.

 

* * *

 

“So…you’re John’s date for the evening, then?”

The woman addressing him was short, ginger and what others would have termed ‘gorgeous’. Even the brunette could, objectively, see what others would find appealing about her, but what was refreshing to him was the bluntness of her, even if it was a bit rude.

He had been stuck there for an hour, with John swallowed up by old friends and colleagues half an hour earlier. To give him his due, he had tried to include the Omega and get him to come along, he really had, but the trouble with old acquaintances was that they did not think to include newcomers into their conversation.

Not that Sherlock had minded. Overly much, at least. It wasn’t as though he would ever really have the sole attention of John at such an event, so he might as well take some time to work out how John was perceived by others in a social context.

Hence also why he was tolerating the woman suddenly standing before him.

“In a manner of speaking, yes,” he replied, taking a sip from the glass of wine in his hand. He did not offer any additional information. If she wanted something juicy, she should at the very least be made to work for it a bit.

She did not seem the least put out by the short, uninformative answer, however, and in the back of his mind he wondered whether or not he ought to practice on his distant, aloof demeanour. It was clearly not as effective as he had imagined it to be.

“Well, his taste has certainly improved over the years, I’ll give him that, but I had no idea he stretched as far as young, male Omegas.” She gave him a very unsubtle onceover, smiling as she met his eyes again. “That said, as a first specimen, he really did pull a corker with you, my dear.”

“More of a ladies’ man, then, is he?” Sherlock asked, surprised but not showing it.

“Like you wouldn’t believe, darling.” Her smile gained a smidgeon of overbearing. “It’s not without reason he’s been known as Three Continents Watson for years. That’s one thing he and his sister has always had in common, actually; the attraction to and ability to catch most of the pretty lady Omegas they came across. Think even Harry would take more than a passing glance at you, though.”

“Good thing she’s not into polyamory, then, isn’t it? Or you’d be in something of a conundrum with regards to jealousy.”

For a moment, the woman looked surprised. Then she laughed and the brunette found himself smiling in turn.

“Oh, you’re good! He’s certainly chosen well this time. What’s your name?”

“Sherlock.”

She took his free hand and, instead of shaking it, she held it up to her lips and kissed it briefly. “Well, Sherlock, I’m Clara and I do hope that I can persuade you to a future sibling-in-law get-together. Sorry to rush off, but I have seen neither hide nor hair of Harry for twenty minutes and my Watson-senses have started to tingle.”

With that, she smiled and walked off, disappearing into the quite large crowd of people gathered to celebrate her and Harry Watson’s engagement.

Pale eyes scanned that crowd, looking for one specific person among the throng and not finding it. Meanwhile, his mind was picking through evidence.

Clara obviously knew of him beforehand, even if she pretended not to know who he was. That meant John must have spoken of him. Not only that, to have spoken of him for long enough and positively enough for the small Omega woman to grow intrigued and seek him out.

Why?

Sherlock understood the concept of a sugar daddy; he understood what the relationship between him and John really was, even if they both pretended it was something else. There was no reason for the Alpha to speak of Sherlock to anyone, let alone to his future sister-in-law. Not unless…

As his heart did a sudden, very unpleasant lurch, he firmly backed off that line of thought. There would be nothing but misery down that route. He might not be able to help his little crush, but that didn’t mean it was anything but foolish to hope for more than that.

So instead he immersed himself in trying to deduce how the guests were, or weren’t, connected with either of the engaged couple.

Lost in his game so he wouldn’t notice the continued constrictions of his heart, he was quite oblivious to having once more gotten company. Company that was neither John nor Clara.

His first clue, which brought him back into the present with a snap, was quite a pungent scent coming from his left and slightly behind him. It was not unpleasant, as such, but it was laced with something that rubbed the nose the wrong way.

He blinked and found that he had been joined, too closely, by a male Alpha whose appearance was pleasant enough, but there was an oily quality to him as well, which was only enhanced when his mouth opened in a smile.

“Well, well, what a lovely surprise to find here. Whose boy toy are you, then, gorgeous?”

“Someone with far better taste than you,” the Omega returned, flashing an overtly fake smile. The man did not pick up on that nor on the clear insult.

“I’ll say,” the Alpha said, his grin widening as he made an attempt to get closer, completely missing the shifts Sherlock made to keep the distance between them. He even had to twist quite quickly and forcefully to avoid a hand landing on his hip. “Whoever it is can’t mind sharing _too_ much or they wouldn’t have dragged you here, only to leave you all on your lonesome.”

Once more his hand tried to find its way down, this time presumably to land on the Omega’s arse and the brunette jerked to avoid it. It had been some time since he’d been propositioned that blatantly and clumsily, but that didn’t make it any less repugnant or profusely unwanted.

Of course he could spew a more direct insult that even the stupidest of idiots couldn’t miss. He could also grab the man’s arm and twist it right up his back until the fingers touched the shirt collar or even just throw the rest of his wine in the wanker’s face. It wasn’t as though he had much of a reputation to keep up. Apart from Clara, but it didn’t seem like something she’d be offended by.

But while he did not have a reputation to risk, John _had_ and it would hardly be a good plan to make a spectacle. Not when he had been invited to the engagement party of John’s sister by the Alpha himself and, moreover, he had recognized the unpleasant undertone in the offender’s scent; chemicals used in the manufacture of just the products that John’s company specialized in. It would not be a good idea to call an Alpha like that, with status of his own, out on something like that, especially in the light of how harassment cases usually were perceived by the general public.

So he held his tongue for the moment, attempting to glare daggers at the man instead.

The Alpha then tried another tactic. Instead of going for a grope, he leant in towards the younger man and inhaled quite loudly, making a small appreciative noise in the back of his throat.

“As rude as ever, I see,” came a, to the Omega, wonderfully familiar voice, just beside them.

The man didn’t straighten up immediately, though. “Well, if you don’t use it, you lose it.”

“In order to lose it, you would have to have it in the first place,” John returned easily. He moved in a way that effectively forced the other Alpha to back up. “What exactly do you think you’re doing, Pete?”

“If you have to ask, then it’s no wonder he’s wandered away from you at the earliest possible opportunity.”

Deep blue eyes narrowed in the way that was quickly becoming familiar to Sherlock, not to mention very attractive, and he felt a strong, unexpectedly calloused hand land on his waist just above his hip. That hand he did not try to avoid at all. It was almost all he could do not lean into that contact.

“First of all, just because you have a one track mind doesn’t mean that goes for the rest of the population, or even just the Alpha portion of it. Secondly, the difference between the Omegas that you pick up and the ones I spend time with is not only that there’s both class and style to mine, they are also at my side at their own free will, not because they’ve been dragged, coerced or even bribed to be there.”

A small part of Sherlock bridled at the objectification of him in the conversation, but another part thrilled to the thought of being John’s Omega. Even if, in the more traditional, perhaps more romantic sense, he only was so for the evening. He certainly wasn’t complaining about the compliment.

Yet another part mused that John was quite wrong, in a way, since he technically had bought Sherlock, though he supposed that he had not been dragged or coerced to be here this evening. Their arrangement was another thing entirely.

He pushed the thought to the back of his mind and concentrated on the two Alphas.

“You always thought you were so much above the rest of us, John,” the harasser sneered, inebriation enhancing the strength of his responses. Just because you were lucky enough to think of some halfway clever contraption that turned out to be essential for army medics in the field and make a mint on it, that doesn’t mean you’ve got any right to lord it over the rest of us.”

“Well, it is certainly better than a man who spends as much time kerb crawling through most of inner London as he does actually sitting on the bench or defending your clients,” Sherlock cut in, on much firmer ground now that he knew it would not affect John negatively by deducing the man, “whom you also overcharge in order to pay for your kerb crawl trips without your Beta wife being any the wiser. Or so you think. Personally, I wouldn’t be so sure, but then some part of you know that, which is why you’re wearing a shirt straight out of a packet and is in the same suit you went to work in today. Yesterday, too, for that matter. You know that if you went home, what you would find would be a large amount of packed cardboard boxes and your two little sons already packed off to stay with their maternal grandmother.”

The intruding Alpha looked at the both of them as if they’d fused into some horrible monster. He then mumbled some excuse and took off through the room towards the exit.

Sherlock chuckled and John let out a sound that could only be termed a giggle. They looked at each other, both full of mirth, but the laughter died away as they looked, the air between them suddenly charged. The Omega felt sure that he was about to be kissed; he would have initiated it himself if he could only get his body to respond. The hand still on his hip curled so as better to grip.

John rose on his toes slightly, but then he seemed to remember himself and withdrew, much to the disappointment of the younger Holmes.

“That was even more brilliant than usual. You got all of that just from looking at him?”

“And more besides, but you know that. You’ve seen me do it before.” He was a tiny bit snappish, but he missed that hand on his hip. It had belonged.

But the older man was smiling. “Still amazing. Why you were ever searching for a job as a lab assistant I’ll never know.”

Sherlock frowned at the information. “You were aware of that?”

“Mate of mine told me of an application to his hospital where the person was not only over-qualified, but had spent time pointing out just how inefficient their current work methods were based on things that an outsider shouldn’t know.”

It didn’t take a lot of thought to work out which hospital it was, even if he hadn’t been told the last bit. “Bart’s. They told me I couldn’t get the job because I’m an Omega. Well, not in so many words, but…”

John’s eyes softened at that and Sherlock’s heart did another somersault. “No, they wouldn’t. I’m sorry to hear that they did that.” He smiled, an amused half-smile that got a response from other parts of Sherlock’s anatomy. Still, can’t really write ‘caused the head of the department to quit after others read the deductions about her’ as the reason for rejection, can they?”

The Omega smiled in turn. “No, I suppose they can’t.”

They stood for a bit, neither speaking as they took in the people around them. The brunette wanted to ask why he had really been brought here this night, but he didn’t want to ruin the comfortable air that had settled between them. As they stood there, people all around, it felt like it was the two of them against the world, which was rather appealing.

Something slipped into Sherlock’s hand. He was just about to jerk his hand away when he registered that it was the same calloused hand that had been on his hip earlier. His eyes shot down to look at his hand clasped in John’s, then up to the Alpha’s face where he met one of those soft, utterly dazzling smile that did things to his heart, his knees and, not least, his groin.

He offered the best smile he could in return.

“Let’s make it a memorable night, yeah?” John whispered, winking.

 

* * *

 

It was quiet on the street when Sherlock was dropped off in front of his building very late into the evening.

It had been quite the evening, even discounting the whole harassment incident; Clara had returned from her expedition to locate her bride to be and by the look on her face as she stomped into the room, what she had found had not been pleasant.

Confirmation was brought home when Harry came in through the door a few minutes later, unsteady on her feet and waving a half-empty whiskey bottle. She had looked quite determined to reach Clara and, after something of a shouting match that had more than a few people wincing and trying to pull them apart, it had turned out that Harry had been a nervous wreck about the whole marriage thing, convinced that Clara would realize she could do so much better for an Alpha than Harry, and done what she did best; hit the bottle in order to try and cope with it.

It had all ended what passed for well for them, according to John. The clashes were how they worked as a couple and Clara was about the only one who could pull Harry from drinking, at least as things stood.

There’d also been a few of John’s army mates trying to drag him into something and a woman with quite the substantial crush on the blonde Alpha, and that was not even everything.

Once he was lying on his bed, clothes strewn about the route to the bed, Sherlock allowed his hand to slip underneath the waistband of his boxers where his cock almost sprang to attention at his touch.

He had long ago given up on not being physically affected by the rugged looks, the masculine, musky scent and, not least, the layered personality of John Watson. It was a completely lost cause and it was hardly going to hurt anyone for him to feel like he did.

So instead he let himself enjoy the sensations coursing through him as well as the images his mind could conjure up. It felt almost real.

“John…” he breathed as he arched and writhed. “Oh…please, John. _John!_ ”

As he lay there, completely spent after a very memorable night as well as a rather nice hand-job that still felt lacking somehow, he was acutely aware that his Heat wasn’t too far off. If it was as on schedule as it usually was, as it could manage to be without Sherlock being on suppressants, then he would experience it within the next month.

He hated his Heats in general, even though he was among the lucky Omegas who had their Heat three times a year and not four, as miserable, painful affairs, but the ones that fell in the summer months were more unpleasant than the others. Even when it wasn’t hot outside, the air of London in summer was hell on a body in the throes of Heat.

Even so, he found himself not only looking forward to his Heat, at least somewhat, but wishing that he would have a certain someone there to see it through with him, take care of him. If nothing else, he figured that John would at least have an interest in him sexually when he was positively swimming in pheromones and hormones. After all, he would have to collect on his investment at some point, wouldn’t he? Wouldn’t he?

Sherlock had to admit that he hoped so. He found that he wanted to be a part of John’s life, as a companion more than just a ‘boy toy’, as his harasser had put it, but if boy toy was the status he could attain at the moment, then that was what he’d take.

It struck him just how dependant and needy it sounded. How utterly stereotypically _Omega_ it was to wish for some Alpha’s attention and care and he recoiled from the realization. He did not want to be dependent on anyone, least of all an Alpha, so why was he allowing John Watson of all people to get under his skin like that? What made him so bloody special?

 _Well, there’s the fact that he’s handsome as hell,_ a small voice piped up inside his head, _in that nicely rugged way, too, that one that oozes danger and power. But since you don’t care about that, obviously, there’s how much he appreciates your company. Not many people have genuinely done that throughout the years. You can’t say it’s because he’s paying for all this, either. Precisely because he is, he really doesn’t have any obligation to just spend time with you for the sake of it, does he?_

Sherlock had to admit that was a valid point.

_Then there’s his intelligence, which isn’t bad at all, and he’s not too attached to either his intellect, his power or his Alpha status to recognize those qualities in others, regardless of their primary or secondary gender. He’s got a dry sense of humour that’s nevertheless inclusive and he’s clearly a man that cares. Perhaps a bit too much about too many people, but…_

“Oh god,” he groaned out loud, putting a hand over his eyes. “I’m well and truly bloody besotted.”

The worst part of that realization wasn’t the fact that he couldn’t stop being so. It was that he did in no way _want_ to.

 

* * *

 

His Heat was just about to hit. He knew it instinctively, as most Omegas did after the first few years of having Heats. There was no need for him to inform anyone, as he still had not managed to find a job, searched frankly though he had, and Mycroft had not contacted him at all since he had moved into the flat, which was in its own way odd.

He had not informed John of his circumstances either. It wasn’t that they hadn’t seen in each other; since he’d been told off by the older man, they’d kept in regular contact over text, but the younger Holmes had not heard from him in a few days, which puzzled him.

Surely John would know that he’d be having his Heat at this point in time. They’d discussed it the night they’d had dinner at Clos Maggiore, John more or less telling him off for there being such gaps between them.

It ought to tick him off royally that he remembered such an utterly irrelevant detail, but try as he might, he had difficulties deleting anything to do with the man.

The point was, he would know. He would and he would come. He had to.

The doorbell rang and Sherlock walked quickly to it, almost wrenching it open, reading to greet the man with something like ‘cutting it a bit fine there’.

His words died in his throat, though, when he saw that it wasn’t John standing outside the door with an apologetic smile.

Instead it was a young delivery boy of 16 or 17, recently presented and slightly bowled over by the scent of an Omega entering the beginning stages of a Heat, holding a package between his hands.

“Yes?”

“Mr. Sherlock Holmes?” the boy asked, intimidated by the tone of voice and the hard glare. “I – there’s a packet here.”

“I can see that, yes, thank you.”

“I…I need you to sign for it, sir.” He fumbled in his pocket for the electronic signature device while attempting to keep the package steady. When he found it, the held it out almost like a shield. “Sorry, sir, I’m new.”

 _And hardly likely to get old in the job, either,_ Sherlock thought as he signed on the device. It was hard to detect under all the other scents the cardboard had picked up on its way, but he could smell the faint traces of a familiar scent on it, nevertheless.

Once back inside the flat, he put the box down on the coffee table and more or less ripped it open.

Inside the box there was a small selection of dildos, a love egg, a butt plug as well as a slip for scheduled food and drink deliveries from Sainsbury’s for the maximum expected duration of his Heat.

So…John either wanted to be prepared for when he did arrive or he knew that he wasn’t going to be there and wanted to ‘help out’ with something in his absence.

How he managed to keep his frustrated anger enough in check not to chuck one of the dildos, or even the entire box, against the nearest wall, he had no idea.

Normally he wouldn’t touch suppressants with a barge pole, with the possible side effects they usually brought with them, but right then he would have welcomed being on them, just so that he wouldn’t be faced with a Heat while so wrapped up in one Alpha. But no, that wasn’t to be.

He could at least see it through with something besides his fingers, which was a bit of a relief. A part of him, the part that wanted to be taken care of, felt warm at the thought that his Alpha had provided for him when he couldn’t be there himself.

The larger part, however, mainly felt angry and perplexed as to why John _wasn’t_ there himself. Surely it was an ideal time to get some dividends on his investment, as it was, and whatever was keeping him tied up, presumably businesswise, couldn’t really be important enough to keep him away.

Setting his jaw, he fished out the toys; he might as well make the most of the experience and perhaps, if he took the edge off before it got too bad, then he would get a good pace of Heat spikes that he would be able to manage, at least to some degree.

It did not mean that he wouldn’t be cursing John Watson to hell and back throughout the entire time. Not at all.

 

* * *

 

He clawed weakly at the headboard he was holding onto as another orgasm shot through him, leaving him spent but in no way satisfied. Even the long dildo continuing to vibrate inside him hadn’t been enough to do more than take the edge off, not even when he’d pressed down hard enough to take the fake knot at the bottom all the way inside of him.

Three days. He had been living through the hell of a Heat on his own in summer for three days and he was just about to go ‘around the bend with it.

His head might have trouble coming to terms with just how deeply he had come to be affected by the rather unique Alpha, but his body seemed to have no such problems. It knew who its Alpha was and it needed him, badly. Why it wasn’t getting what it needed it didn’t understand, which just made it go into overdrive to try and entice someone who wasn’t even there.

At one point he had even gone through every piece of clothing he owned that might have even the slightest bit of scent from the older man, his Heat fever spiking whenever he managed to get the smallest whiff of it.

The only thing that kept him from going completely nuts was the innate knowledge that the fever was about to break and the Heat would be over in another day, at most.

Still, it was all he could do not to contact John somehow and beg him to come over, come home, whatever it took to get him there with Sherlock, where he belonged.

Exhausted and aroused as he was, however, he wasn’t sure he would be coherent enough to talk to anyone or that he could get his hands enough under control to write out an intelligible text. So instead he lay down on his back on the bed and closed his eyes, in the hope that he would get at least an hour or two of rest.

He kept the dildo inside him and vibrating, even with his oversensitivity setting in. It might just help keep the need at bay for long enough that he could sleep.

 

* * *

 

_Hey Sherlock. I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch. I hope your Heat was helped a bit by the things I sent. Looking forward to hopefully seeing you soon._

The text came in only a day after the Heat had ebbed out, which was enough to piss him off all over again. The least he could do was to be clear in his intentions, not be sending constantly mixed signals. That was an Omega’s prerogative, not an Alpha’s.

It wasn’t that he didn’t find Sherlock attractive; the Omega had seen clearly how blue eyes had dilated at the sight of him, especially in that suit, had smelled the change in Alpha scent. What was more, the blonde had to have smelled the scent coming off the younger Holmes as well. He’d know it was reciprocated. His friends and family clearly thought they were already sleeping together, even if the arrangement was somewhat different than what they probably imagined.

Sleeping together wouldn’t change how they’d worked together up until now, not automatically without their consent, and if John was worried that it would, Heat would have been the best excuse for sweeping it under the carpet. That was what so many sugar daddies did, according to the blogs of the young Omegas who had them. The first time together was under the influence of Heat, both to ease the Omega into the arrangement and to give the Alpha an out if they didn’t want to keep the Omega afterwards.

All in all, there was no real reason for John not to have been there.

Unless, of course, he just didn’t want to have sex with Sherlock.

“No, that just doesn’t make any sense at all,” he said out loud, the words echoing slightly in the flat. Why else would he splash that much cash? Who did that out of the goodness of their hearts without expecting anything in return? Altruism wasn’t really the order of the day in society.

It was sorely tempting to turn off his phone, but remembering the reaction the last time he’d neglected to reply, he chose to just reply as briefly as he could get reasonably get away with. Then he left it on a table while he went to focus on a study on different rust particles that he’d been forced to postpone due to being…inconvenienced.

He wanted to get the _real_ reason John had not only stayed well clear of the younger man while he’d been in Heat, but why he’d taken Sherlock in in the first place. However, he would not stoop as low as to contact the Alpha and ask outright. The very least he could do was come to him.

His body, and not least his heart, protested violently at that, but both were soundly ignored.

 

* * *

 

Evening was creeping towards night about a week when the doorbell rang. At first, Sherlock ignored it, continuing to lie on the sofa dressed in an old pair of trousers and a t-shirt, lithe legs dangling halfway off the end of it. He tried to retreat into his Mind Palace, but for some reason he was unsuccessful. He did not respond when the doorbell rang again and continued to do so, though.

“Oi, Sherlock!” a voice eventually called from the other side of the door. “I know you’re in there and I know you’re ignoring me. I’m not going away, though.”

 _And you’re implying that if need be, you’ll unlock the door with your own key to the flat that you’ve had since the beginning._ With that thought in mind, Sherlock pulled his legs under him, stood up and walked through to the front door.

When he opened the door, it was to see the sight that he’d been hoping to get when he’d opened the door to the delivery boy just before he’d entered Heat.

John was in tight slacks, an equally tight dark shirt and no jacket. His hair was as styled as always, but unexpectedly he had quite the stubble. Not that it in any way was detracting, Sherlock had to admit, but that did not mean that it was any less unexpected, as he had never seen the Alpha as ragged as that before.

The oddity was enhanced not so much by the plastic bag containing take-away he held in one hand, but by the bottle he held by the neck in the other. At the engagement party it had been made abundantly clear, in more ways than one, that alcohol and the Watson family was a very bad combination, so why would he bring a bottle here? It wasn’t even that he’d already drunk something before coming there, either.

“Are you just going to stand there staring or are you actually going to let me in?”

“I don’t know. The doorjamb is surprisingly comfortable, so perhaps we should wait and see?” Despite the words and the cranky tone to his voice, Sherlock did step aside enough to allow the shorter man inside.

“Thought you hadn’t eaten yet, so I brought something. Not exactly French cuisine, I know, but…” he trailed off as they went into the kitchen and he unloaded his wares onto the counter.

Sherlock saw the meal for what it was; an apology and something of a peace offering. “I suppose I can’t complain when you actually went and got _proper_ Chinese. The one over in Bethnal Green?”

John smiled softly as his apology seemed to be at least somewhat accepted. He wasn’t out of the woods yet, but he wasn’t being completely rejected either, he knew. “No, that’s a bit far away – and didn’t they change owners recently? Here, let me help you with that.”

So they worked in relative silent company unpacking and plating up the various dishes. The whiskey bottle had been put on the counter top as well, but neither of them mentioned it.

As they worked, Sherlock was once again struck by how affected he was by the Alpha. He was still angry with the man, very much so, but at the same time, he couldn’t deny that it felt good to be in his company again. More than good, as a matter of fact; whenever they spent time together, there was a definite sense that they fitted like two pieces of a puzzle, as utterly sappy as that sounded.

It did not alter the unease of why the bottle had been brought, however.

They sat down for dinner, John almost pointedly asking about Sherlock’s experiments, his time at university and his future plans, all carefully without mentioning their current situation. In turn, Sherlock questioned him about just what kind of things kept him flying out of the country. The atmosphere started off tense, to put it mildly, but as they continued talking, something loosened and they slowly returned to their previous banter.

As the evening wore on, Sherlock was growing aware once again of just how much his body had claimed John as his Alpha already and how bereft it had been during his Heat; his temperature slowly rose, his backside began to ache and slicken and to top it off, the scent gland had started to throb ever so gently. He found himself shifting towards the older man, who was sitting in one of the chairs across the coffee table, frequently. He needed something to distract himself with so that he didn’t do something stupid, like actually reaching over to touch the man.

It was not until he blinked and had to blink another few times in order to clear his vision that he realized he’d not only had a glass of whiskey placed in front of him for quite a while, but that he had drunk enough from it that it’d had to be refilled _at least_ once. Why had he not been aware of that? He _prided_ himself on being the observant one and yet…

What was worse, though, was that although he had quite the tolerance for narcotics, that tolerance did not stretch towards alcohol, and so he was feeling a bit…addled. That in itself wasn’t a problem; he had taken care of himself under the influence before.

The problem lay in that with alcohol, his tongue got loosened and he spewed out things he did not want to divulge. Not so much the deductions, as he never had a problem with those, but the feelings that he normally kept so carefully bottled up inside.

Sure enough, it wasn’t long after his realization that he was slightly sloshed that John decided to launch into a story that involved one of his exes and Sherlock found himself unable to keep his mouth shut.

“John?” he interrupted.

“Yes, Sherlock?”

“Do you wish I’d been a woman?”

John frowned, obviously thrown by the apparently very non-sequitur comment. “I generally don’t wish anyone I meet to be any other gender than what they are, primary or secondary, so no. I can’t really see you as a woman, even with your cheekbones and everything. Why do you ask?”

“Well, there has to be some reason.” He wished his voice sounded more slurred or at least unsteady. That way it would be so much easier to blame it all on his being drunk if things went tits-up.

“For what?”

Faced with the question, Sherlock felt an extremely idiotic urge to rush out of the flat to avoid it. Instead he stood up rather abruptly from the sofa and walked over in front of the floor to ceiling windows in the living room where he’d be able to pace. “For why you’re so adamant to avoid having sex with me.”

He was facing the window as he spoke, so he did not catch the resulting expression on the other’s face. “What? Why do you…why would I do that?” The chair scraped against the floor as the Alpha stood up as well. “Do you honestly think that’s why I got to know you? To get a leg over?”

Sherlock didn’t answer, mostly because he knew that if he did, what would come out would be weak and vulnerable and that would hardly be a good idea.

When he was grabbed by the elbow and more or less yanked around, however, he was forced to confront a John with an expression that was caught between utter disbelief and mounting anger.

“Is that what you think of me? That I did all of this “– he swept an arm out to encompass the flat – “just so that I could get some leverage to get you to let me fuck you?” His voice was low and, frankly, quite dangerous.

Sherlock was not to be deterred, though. Not when he finally had a chance to get to the bottom of the question that had been eluding, not to mention nagging, him since he’d received that very first email.

“Who would spend all of that money on a complete stranger without expecting anything in return? _Nobody_ is that altruistic!” He drew in a quick breath before continuing. “I’m an unbonded Omega, you’re a much older Alpha who’s effectively been a sugar daddy, it’s not exactly that big a leap!”

Before he knew what was really happening, Sherlock found himself being walked backwards quickly by deceptively strong hands on his shoulders. He tried to hold his ground, but despite that, his back hit a wall very soon afterwards.

He looked down into John’s face; the expression was noticeably calmer than before, but all that meant was that the anger was a fuse burning down towards the explosion at the end of the line.

“Now you listen to me, Sherlock Holmes,” the Alpha said, calmly, with only an undertone of a growl to belie his feelings. “You may be a clever little bugger, an observant one at that, but that does not mean you understand every single thing in the universe or that your observations are always exhaustive or even all that true, understand?”

The Omega opened his mouth, but a glare from the deep blue eyes shut him right back up.

“Have you ever paused to think that I might actually _enjoy_ your company? That not everything people do has an ulterior motive? That the only thing I wanted in return _might_ be just to know that an obviously bright kid with so many prospects wasn’t damaged beyond repair by drugs and not being given a chance by anyone? That I don’t give a fuck about how much I have or haven’t spent on you?”

He inhaled deeply after the small spiel. “You ask me why I haven’t fucked you six ways from Sunday yet? You think that it’s because you’re a male Omega despite clear evidence that I have found you attractive as hell since the first time I saw you?”

“If it isn’t that, then why?” Sherlock interrupted to ask.

A smile spread across John’s face at that. It was dark and possessive and also a tiny bit self-deprecating. “You want to know, do you? Why I stayed away from you during your Heat and haven’t made a move before that, either?”

Sherlock nodded.

“I’m surprised you haven’t wondered why I’m not already bonded, man of my age.”

“You could be and be hiding it.”

John barked a short laugh. “True, except then you wouldn’t have had the approval of Clara. No. I may have a reputation with the ladies, but there’s a reason none of them has stuck around.” Strong hands moved down from pinning the lithe body to the wall by the shoulders to doing so by the hips, fingers pressing into the flesh beneath them in what could only be described as a possessive gesture.

“When I get a taste of someone,” he continued, “romantically or sexually or both, I tend to get…somewhat possessive of them. That’s not exactly an attractive feature and some people don’t take to it very well. I’ve never been too sure you would be able to handle that, when it came down to it. I still wanted you to be a part of my life, though, so I decided that companionship would have to do instead, even if that was only maintained because I was paying your expenses. So yeah, I want you…fucking hell, do I want you, but if the choice is between being friends without anything else and you ending up walking out on me, then it’s not much of a choice, really.”

Pale eyes stared into stormy blues, wider than normal in shocked, but joyous realization.

John wanted…and he had wanted right from the start. But he thought that Sherlock couldn’t handle it, that he’d walk away from someone as interesting as John just because he had some possessive tendencies? That he’d be scared off or only keep seeing the man because he was being paid?

He could tell him that that was utter nonsense. That he’d felt an attraction to the other on their very first evening together, that the man had affected him to a degree that no one else had. Most importantly, that when he’d been in Heat, his body had been screaming for the care of who it saw as its Alpha.

Apropos of Heat, he might have been past it then, but nevertheless he could feel some of that particular fever creeping back into him. His scent gland throbbed on his neck.

Rather than saying anything, he instead chose to raise one hand to the collar of his t-shirt to pull at it while he tilted his head to the side as much as possible, baring the scent gland.

He kept eye-contact through-out the movement. Thus he was able to see those eyes that had been swimming through his mind frequently in the past few months dilate heavily at the gesture and, not least, the implications of it.

Sherlock let out a small noise of surprise as he felt his legs being grabbed tightly and lifted and he instinctively wrapped them around the compact frame in front of him. The noise turned into more of a moan when their new proximity revealed something else that had not been apparent before.

“Are you sure, Sherlock?” he could hear John ask. “You don’t have to do it, so if you’re not sure, then…oh, gods…” He closed his eyes and drew in a few breaths that seemed meant to be calming, as if that would somehow reign his behaviour in again. Sherlock felt no such compulsion.

“I’m sure, John. Very sure.” He moved his head forward to rest their foreheads together. John looked up into Sherlock’s eyes, filled with longing and need. “ _Please_.”

If this was how he’d get his John all to himself, he would do it. He’d do more or less anything, really.

Long legs were dropped, but only for the time it took for them to find some semblance of footing that would allow him to get his trousers open and off as quickly as possible. Sherlock wasn’t the one to do it, though. When he tried to, his hands were firmly pushed away for John to do it instead, so Sherlock pulled his t-shirt off. John’s gesture puzzled the Omega until he felt the strong hands on his thighs, taking the opportunity to glide over his skin as they pushed the fabric down.

More than that, it also put the Alpha’s face in close proximity to Sherlock’s still covered cock. He tried not to think too much about that fact, since it threatened to send him sliding down the wall due to his legs giving out on him. As it was, it was all he could do to actually lift his feet so the trousers could come off completely. Dimly he wondered why the boxers hadn’t come off along with the trousers.

His answer came when hot breath moistened the fabric over his dick, making it twitch violently and a full body shiver run through him. Only the hands back on his hips kept him even moderately upright. He felt his backside slicken further and felt the Alpha inhale at the sudden rush of pheromones in the air.

“Fuck, Sherlock…” he breathed, sending another shudder through the lithe frame in front of him as his breath hit sensitive flesh. “That smell…you smell amazing _normally_ , but _bloody hell_ – and you’re not even in Heat now!”

“John…” the brunette moaned weakly. He would have contradicted the Alpha if he could muster the coherency; he might not actually be in Heat, but it certainly _felt_ as though he was.

The moan turned into a startled gasp when he felt lips press against the skin just above the waistband of the boxers and, more importantly, that stubble brush against him. He was sensitive enough as it was, even though they had yet to do much, but that soft, yet bristly sensation on his sensitive flesh was something else entirely.

His hips stuttered forward of their own volition or rather, they tried to, but were still held in place by the strong hands. Not even when the lips grabbed hold of the elastic and started to slowly drag the boxers down and his hips consequently attempted to buck was he able to break the hold.

“Oh, god, John…I’m not…I haven’t…uhm…” He had no idea what he was trying to say, but he knew that he wouldn’t be able to last very long if this kept up. Not when it was the Alpha he’d wanted and needed for so long doing it to him.

John didn’t seem to be paying attention, however, at least not to what Sherlock was saying. He only pulled the boxers down far enough with his teeth to let the Omega’s cock spring free of its confines. Then he growled something under his breath that could have been ‘mine’ and proceeded to rub the stubble of one cheek slowly and gently up and down the shaft, which earned him another series of little gasps.

While Sherlock was distracted by sensations, the blonde took the opportunity to slide the underwear the rest of the way off. Then he brought two fingers up to ghost across the younger man’s perineum until they found the entrance that, although not as pliant as it would have been in Heat, was soft and slick in response to its Alpha.

Above him, Sherlock had stopped trying to move in an effort to be submissive and compliant and was instead making suppressed little noises that went straight to John’s own straining erection. The Omega wasn’t going to last long as it was, though, that much was clear. He needed the edge taken off, so John could fuck him long and hard, which he intended to do.

Sherlock hadn’t notice that his boxers had come off, but when the head of his dick was engulfed in wet, warm heat, there was no way he could think of anything but that. That is, until two fingers pushed inside of him, spreading as they went.

It was too much. Too much for a body that had craved for so long and been denied, and he came with a shout that he muffled by cramming his hand into his mouth. From the sound of the small choke John wasn’t expecting that so soon, but he swallowed down what came, except for the last spurt that came unexpectedly after he’d already pulled back.

It streaked across his cheek and he made no move to wipe it off.

Instead he pointedly licked his lips for any remnants, looking the other straight in the eye as he did so. Then he rose up, one hand still gripping onto a bony hip to keep the other in place as well as supported. The other, the one that had been inside the Omega, came up to rest on a soft cheek.

“For the record,” John said softly, but firmly, “I never want you to muffle any sound coming out of that gorgeous mouth ever again in these situations, understand?”

Sherlock nodded meekly, eyes hazy from his orgasm, but still blown by continued arousal. He then turned his head slightly in order to capture the fingers covered in slick and suck them into his mouth.

John’s eyes widened and he groaned deeply, letting Sherlock lick the fingers completely clean. Once clean, he pulled off them with an audible slurp.

As soon as he had, though, his head was pulled down sharply in order for his mouth could be plundered by the Alpha. He was more than happy to acquiesce, but gave almost as well as he got; it was clear that John had experience in the art of snogging someone senseless and he was putting that experience to good use, nipping, licking and sucking, all which served to make Sherlock whine in the back of his throat and his cock start to rise again.

While they kissed, John opened his own trousers and pushed them down, but only far enough down his thighs to let his straining erection out into the open air and give him enough freedom to move.

The cloud of pheromones released into the air by that action sent bony hands up to grab at broad shoulders, fingers digging in hard. Sherlock pulled back from the kiss, mainly so that he could gasp, a little brokenly.

“I…oh…John…please fuck me now – I _need_ you.” He did. He needed him with a fervour that he wouldn’t have believed himself capable of outside of Heat, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. Not when he was just on the verge of getting what he needed.

“Shush now,” John soothed, but the effect was spoiled by the faint growl present in his voice. “I’ll fuck you good and hard, don’t worry. God, if you knew just how many times I’ve imagined this…so now that I have you, I’m going to make it last as long as possible.”

With that, he grabbed hold of the lithe legs again by the knees and more or less yanked them upwards, which left Sherlock no choice but to wrap them around the sturdy frame once more, his hands gripping even more tightly. The display of strength was no less erotic than it had been the first time.

What was even more appealing for both of them, though, was the fact that the new position was just the right angle for the head of the Alpha’s cock to nudge against the Omega’s entrance, which was unusually slick for ‘normal’ sex. The hole twitched at the sensation in an effort to pull the penis inside.

Interestingly, despite that Sherlock himself didn’t make any attempt at pushing down or otherwise get what he so needed. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to; from the way he held himself, even with his back pressed up against the wall, it was more than evident that he was struggling and fighting _not_ to press down or push up or anything of the like, but to remain as still as possible. He was waiting for John to make the move, submitting to the will of his Alpha.

That realization went straight to John’s dick, which was leaking as it was. He shifted his grip on the legs so that his hands were gripping the deliciously round arse cheeks firmly, which, together with the brunette’s back pressing into the wall, gave him ample leverage to thrust.

Thrust he did, angling his hips just a little more and then pushing forward in one long slide, the softness of the entrance and the slick seeping out of it ensuring that he had no trouble whatsoever in doing so. That it was painless did not mean that it was frictionless, as the muscles inside gripped and squeezed for all they were worth as soon as they could.

John let out a deep, long, groaning growl at the feeling.

Which was more or less drowned out by the keening moan issuing from Sherlock’s throat. He might not have had any interest in sex before, but he had had plenty of toys inside him, during his Heat through the years too, but none of them compared to the feeling of having a real, pulsing cock inside of him, Heat or no Heat. Not even his otherwise quite vivid imagination had been up to the task of adequately conveying how it would feel to have his John pushing into him.

It was no wonder then, that he was holding on to broad shoulders rather tightly, his head was bowed and his mouth was open.

“Sherlock? Sherlock, are you alright?”

“Not…” was gasped, but when John started to pull away in concern, he rushed to continue. “Not until…you start to move. Please, John, take me. I need you to so bad, you have no idea.”

Pale eyes rose to look at deep blue, with deep pleading in them. Then he more or less crashed forward to capture the lips of the other in a deep kiss. Not that John seemed to complain, as he was both quick to reciprocate the kiss and to start to pull out so that he could push in again, gently at first so his little Omega could get a bit acclimatized to it before he picked up the pace until he had set quite a fast, hard one.

When he did, Sherlock broke the kiss to let his head tip backwards with a deep moan, eyes closed.

“Oh, yes…that feels…yes, John, please, more…need more…please!” he moaned, pressing down with every thrust of the Alpha’s hips upwards.

“I’ll give you as much as you want,” John growled in reply. “Oh, god, how you are not in Heat…I’ll fuck you good and long, fuck you so hard you’ll feel me for days afterwards. You’ll be swimming in my seed so much that you’ll smell knocked up without being anywhere near it. You’re my little Omega to do what I want with. No one else’s. _Mine!_ ”

“Yes!” Sherlock managed to gasp. “Yours…only yours, always yours…want to be yours!”

He had tried to be obedient and let the Alpha take control, but as it was, he was quite incapable of not writhing to the best of his abilities on the thick length that pressed inside him and filled him up where he so very badly needed it. Especially not when the possessive words and the sweet pheromones made him shudder and set his skin on fire. “Knot…need knot. Please, _need knot._ ”

He did. He needed it so badly he could barely think of anything else by that point. Not even his own erection, which had gone from non-existent to straining very quickly indeed, could he spare a thought to, even as it throbbed, caught between them with only the vaguest of touches. His heels were digging into the shorter man’s flesh hard and his fingers were no doubt leaving quite considerable bruises on broad shoulders, but even if he had had a mind to spare to care about it, he wouldn’t. it would mean that there was a visible mark from Sherlock on John’s body and that was extremely appealing.

The knot had been a presence since the first long slide of the Alpha’s cock inside his slick entrance, but now it pressed more and more firmly against it, which only spurred both of them on, the Alpha rumbling and growling while the Omega was reduced to uttering nothing but tiny, gasping moans. Just a bit more, just a…

The final straw came when John rose to whisper in Sherlock’s ear. “I wish I’d bought a flat closer to the ground,” he said, the steadiness of his voice obviously bought with a great deal of willpower. “That way everyone who even glanced through the window would be able to see you, see how absolutely gorgeous you are, especially now, and…” he stopped speaking for a moment to lick a path over Sherlock’s scent gland, earning him a high-pitched noise of surprise and pleasure, “they’d know that it was your Alpha taking you, that you belonged to me and me alone.”

With that, he lowered his teeth to the scent gland and with the next, forceful thrust in, he not only bit through the skin, but the knot popped all the way in and he came, seed shooting deep inside the spasming channel, which took everything that it was granted.

John’s exclamation was heavily muffled by the bite that would seal them as bond mates, but Sherlock was able to give voice to the overwhelming, unprecedented feeling of having the knot expand inside of him, being filled with seed and orgasming himself and he did. It started out as a shout of “John!”, but almost immediately transitioned into a high keen.

When John managed to get some semblance of both breath and mental faculties back, he moved his arms to cradle the still shaking Sherlock to him. After making sure that he had a sufficiently strong hold on the man in his arms, he somehow managed to step out of his trousers and manoeuvre them both into the bedroom, which was thankfully close. There he put his burden down gently.

He’d slipped out during the trip there, the knot not expanded enough to trap him inside the Omega for very long after ejaculation. That could only happen when Sherlock was in Heat, which was also the only time that he would be able to conceive.

Those facts only meant that he could see the semen trickle out of the swollen, still minutely twitching entrance as the brunette lay there on his side, eyes closed, chest heaving, body shivering and tiny little noises escaping from him. The sweet scent coming off his skin as well as the small smile on his lips

John smiled and got on the bed, wrapping himself around the lithe frame as best he could, with the duvet covering them both. Sherlock sighed contentedly and pressed into the touch, red though his back was.

The Alpha brushed a sweat-soaked curl out of his new mate’s face and smiled. “You were mine from the first time I saw you in that bar, love,” he whispered. The Omega only mumbled in reply, but as he was breathing deeply, he was more than likely slipping into sleep and so didn’t hear.

 

* * *

 

“It will be interesting to see what action Mycroft is going to take.”

They were once again sitting in the living room, together on the sofa. It was late morning on the following day and they were each holding a mug of tea. John was the only one who’d taken more than sip, though.

“In response to us bonding, you mean? Nothing much, I should think. He didn’t strike me as the type to make unreasonable demands or go into hysterics when I met him. Granted, he is _your_ brother, but I got the feeling he is more into subtle manipulations and those I handle on daily basis.”

Sherlock frowned, nonplussed. “You met him?” he echoed. “When?”

“Back when you moved into the flat. He keeps a very good eye on you, turns out.” John chuckled to himself. “Actually, he thought I wanted to play on your drug addiction and set this up as a high-class brothel. Took quite a bit to convince him that wasn’t the case, but I think he’s making doubly sure somehow, anyway.”

If John expected Sherlock to look cross, puzzled or appalled, he was to be disappointed. Instead a small smile played around cupid bow lips. “So he got what he wanted, after all, then.”

“What do you mean?”

“I was jobless and pretty much destitute when you contacted me, which you know, but that was because Mycroft disapproved of my drug habit and tried to get me to stop by cutting off access to my funds.” He raised an eyebrow. “I am most certainly drug free now and with someone like you as my bond mate, it is unlikely that I’ll relapse.”

“Unlikely?” There was a hint of suppressed anger.

The Omega shrugged. “I do still get bored, John – that or my mind needs to be quiet for a while instead of constantly observing everything.”

A hand landed on a bony knee. “Then how about we find something that’ll occupy your time and your mind?”

Sherlock looked into deep blue eyes crinkled in a smile and shining with understanding, possessiveness and, apparent now, love. He moved his own hand over to grab and squeeze the hand on his need. The hand of his _bond mate_. “Yes, please.”

 

* * *

 

“John. Please.” He batted hands away. “Stop fussing.”

“It isn’t fussing to get you to wear something you were given as a gift, plonker.” After a bit more struggling, the blonde managed to get the scarf tied around the long neck. “There, all done.”

“I don’t need any gifts,” Sherlock groused, pointedly looking away from his partner, but nevertheless, he made no further attempts to get the royal blue scarf off.

John merely smiled. The issue of money had been quite the bed of contention between them in the eight months they had been a bonded pair, especially since Sherlock had landed a job working as a forensic consultant with the Met. It wasn’t quite the job that he wanted, but it was a start.

His argument hadn’t been helped by the fact that he’d spent quite a lot of his first pay on a full-length, bespoke wool coat. He’d argued that if he was to be taken seriously as a consultant, especially a young, bonded Omega, there was a style that ought to be maintained.

“Sometimes you might do, love. In the right circumstances.” A little, white stick was suddenly in front of pale eyes. Its display was clearly visible and Sherlock snapped his gaze back to stare at the Alpha.

“You’re not always as good at hiding things as you think you are,” John said, eyebrows raised. Then he leant up to press a quick, firm kiss to the other’s lips. “Congratulations. You could have told me, though.”

“Didn’t know if you’d want it.”

“Now you’re just taking the piss for the hell of it, aren’t you? Why wouldn’t I?” Silence was his answer. “Oh, for crying out – how many times, Sherlock? I love you, not what you can do or how much you earn or just your body, and I’ll love you if you bear me ten children or none, alright? I. Love. You.”

Sherlock looked at his former sugar daddy, his Alpha, his bond mate and father of the child just starting to grow inside of him. The sight and the realization of those facts still sent him weak in the knees.

He swallowed heavily and nodded. “Love you, too.”

“Good,” John said in a tone of voice that was fond exasperation and amusement. “Now go out there and dazzle them with deductions. Go on.”

**Author's Note:**

> Another finished story :D  
> I was so conflicted on whether to divide it into two parts, since I don't like posting such large things all in one go, but I couldn't see where I could reasonably cut it, so you got it all in one go.  
> Oh, yes - the restaurant at the beginning does exist. Why I put so much research into these things, I have no idea XD.  
> I wonder how many were put off that by 'sugar daddy' and how many are going to be disappointed it wasn't Heat-sex, but I have to say, it was fun to write that 'twist', if you like. :)  
> Feedback is always deeply loved and treasured. Oh, and of course, if you feel like it, I do have a tumblr: http://elphenfan.tumblr.com/ Hope to see you there :)


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